class="narrative">“Weren’t you frightened?” said Ruby breathlessly. In spite of her boasted disbelief in dreams and visions her cousin’s story had caught her attention. Miss Hortensia shook her head.

“Not in the very least,” she said. “On the contrary, I felt a strange and delightful kind of pleasure and wonder. It was more intense than I have ever felt anything of the kind in waking life; indeed, if it had lasted long I think it would have been more than I could bear—” Miss Hortensia stopped for a moment and leant back in her chair. “I have felt something of the same,” she went on, “when listening to very, very beautiful music—music that seemed too beautiful and made you almost cry out for it to stop.”

“I’ve never heard music like that,” whispered little Mavis, “but I think I know what you mean.”

“Or,” continued Miss Hortensia, “sometimes on a marvellously beautiful day—what people call a ‘heavenly’ day, I have had a feeling rather like it. A feeling that makes one shut one’s eyes for very pleasure.”

“Well,” said Ruby, “did you shut your eyes then, or what did you do?”

“No,” said her cousin. “I could not have shut them. I felt she was looking at me, and her eyes seemed to catch and fasten mine and draw them into hers. It was her eyes above all that filled me with that beautiful wonderful feeling. I can never forget it—never. I could fancy sometimes even now, old woman as I am, that I am again the little enraptured child gazing up at the beautiful vision. I feel her eyes in mine still.”

“How funny you are,” interrupted Ruby. “A minute ago you said she pulled your eyes into hers, now you say hers came into yours. It would be a very funny feeling whichever it was; I don’t think I should like it.”

Miss Hortensia glanced at her, but gravely. She did not smile.

“It must be a very ‘funny’ feeling, as you call it, to a hitherto blind man the first time he sees the sunshine. I daresay he would find it difficult to describe; and to a still blind person it would be impossible to explain it. I daresay the newly-cured man would not feel sure whether the sun had come into his eyes or his eyes had reached up to the sun.”

Ruby fidgeted.

“Oh, do go on about the fairy or whatever she was,” she said. “Never mind about what I said.”

Miss Hortensia smiled.

“The lady came slowly across the room to me,” she went on, “and stood by my bed, looking down at me with those wonderful blue eyes. Then she smiled, and it seemed as if the light about her grew still brighter. I thought I sat up in bed to see her better. ‘Are you a fairy?’ I said at last. She smiled still more. ‘If you like, you may call me a fairy,’ she answered. ‘But if I am a fairy my home must be fairyland, and this turret-room is one of my homes. So you are my guest, my little girl.’ I did not mind her saying that. I smiled too. ‘I’ve never seen you here before,’ I said. And she laughed a little—I never heard anything so pretty as her laugh. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘but I have seen you and every one that has ever been here, though every one has not seen me. Now listen, my child. I wanted you to see me because I have something to say to you. There will come a time when you will be drawn two ways, one will be back here to the old castle by the sea, after many years; many, many years as you count things. Choose that way, for you will be wanted here. Those yet unborn will want you, for they will want love and care. Look into my eyes, little girl, and promise me you will come to them.’ And in my dream I thought I gazed again into her eyes, and I felt as if their blue light was the light of a faith and truth that could not be broken, and I said, ‘I promise.’ And then the fairy lady seemed to draw a gauze veil over her face, and it grew dim, and the wonderful eyes were hidden, and I thought I fell asleep. In reality, I suppose, I had never been awake.”

“And when you did wake up it was morning, I suppose, and it had all been a dream?” asked Ruby.

Miss Hortensia gave a little sigh.

“Yes,” she said, “I suppose it had been a dream. It was morning, bright morning, the sun streaming in at the other window when I awoke, and I never saw the fairy lady again—not even in a dream. But what she had said came true, my dears. Many, many years after, when I was already beginning to be an old woman, it came true. I am afraid I had grown selfish—life had brought me many anxieties, and I had lived in a great city where there was much luxury and gaiety, and where no one seemed to have thought for anything but the rush of pleasure and worldly cares. I had forgotten all about my beautiful vision, when one day there came a summons. Your sweet young mother had died, my darlings, and your poor father in his desolation could think of no one better to come and take care of his little girls—you were only two years old—than his old cousin. And so I came; and then there crept back to me the remembrance of my dream. I had indeed been drawn two ways, for the friends I might have gone to live with were rich and good-natured, and they promised me everything I could wish. But I thought of the two little motherless ones, here in the old castle by the sea, in want of love and care as she had said, and I came.”

Miss Hortensia stopped. Even Ruby was impressed by what she had heard.

“Dear cousin,” she said, “it was very good of you.”

“And have you never seen the beautiful lady again?” said Mavis. “She told you the west turret was her own room, didn’t she? Have you never seen her there?”

Miss Hortensia shook her head.

“You forget, dear, it was only a dream. And even if it had been more than that, we grow very far away from angels and fairies as we get old, I fear.”

“Not you,” Mavis said; “you’re not like that. And the lady must have been so pleased with you for caring for us, I wonder she hasn’t ever come to see you again. Do you know,” she went on eagerly, after a moment’s pause, “I have a feeling that she is in the west turret-room sometimes!”

Miss Hortensia looked at the child in amazement Mavis’s quiet, rather dull face seemed transformed; it was all flushed and beaming, her eyes sparkling and bright.

“Mavis!” she said, “you look as if you had seen her yourself. But it was only a dream, you mustn’t let my old-world stories make you fanciful. I am too fanciful myself perhaps—I have always loved the vest turret, and that was why I chose it for your play-room when you were little dots.”

“I’m so glad you did,” said Mavis, drawing a long breath.

After that they were all rather silent for a while. Then Ruby claimed Miss Hortensia’s promise of the story or description rather of the grand court ball at which her mother’s beauty had made such a sensation, and when that was ended, the little trumpeter announced, much to the children’s displeasure, that it was time to go to bed.

“We have had a cosy evening,” said Mavis, as she kissed Miss Hortensia.

“And, oh Ruby,” she said, as her sister and she were going slowly upstairs, “don’t you wish we might sleep in the turret-room?”

“No indeed,” Ruby replied, in a most decided tone, “I certainly don’t.”